“SAPPHIRE NOW is not a trade show”

I constantly hear this statement from SAP event organizers and execs. Is it true? And if the sheer enormity of SAPPHIRE NOW doesn’t qualify it as a trade show, then what exactly is it?

“It’s definitely a customer event,” said Bob Leeds, Industry Marketing Director at SAP during a recent chat I had with him at SAP’s Newtown Square office. “The idea is to pool together groups of industries that have common ground to create synergies with customers.”

For instance, SAP customers in the Sports, Media and Telecom industries can pay a visit to the Services Industries campus and easily see how they all relate to each other and how their business processes benefit from SAP. So if you’re a team owner, you could visit the campus to see what Verizon is doing in sports and see the latest and greatest apps that might help with scouting and drafting efforts.

(Shhh, don’t tell anyone but we might see folks from professional sports clubs join SAP Co-CEO Bill McDermott during his keynote to illustrate this point).

This sports example is indicative of how other industries and services compliment each other at SAPPHIRE NOW – and one reason why the Services Industries campus is so expansive. “We need the big size to bring in partners, services and cross topics in one area,” said Bob. “That said, the agenda builder is a perfect tool to make your experience a personal one so attendees can concentrate on the content that matters most.”

Here are other ways customers can get engaged with Services Industries at SAPPHIRE NOW this year:

Test Drive Tables –Located in the Services campus, these mobile devices allow customers to test-drive apps. The apps are very intuitive and the experience will not be interrupted by interference from SAP employees. A Travel & Expense app, for example, will show “the day in the life of a sales person.”

Demo Pods –In-depth demos led by SAP experts that showcase more complex business use cases in an open format. For instance, a soup-to-nuts scenario might cover how a transportation provider introduces a fleet of trucks to all of North America. How might that process look and how can SAP help?

Demo Theaters –Acting as atent pole to the aforementioned, demo theaters are designed to showcase the latest and greatest innovations from SAP services. Oftentimes, customers become interested in something they’ve seen in the Demo Theater and make the time to sit through a more detailed demo later.

“Clearly, SAP is not trade show,” said Bob. “The event focuses on innovation from the perspective of the customer’s customer and brings together multiple technologies from Cloud to In Memory Computing flavored with 25 industries, hundreds of partners and thousands of customers.”

For more information about SAP Services and Lines of Business offerings at SAPPHIRE NOW, please watch the short video below with SAP’s Bob Leeds.

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